A beauitiful city which we arrive at after 3 hr bus journey. Get there by 1pm. Discover a guest house with a shower curtain... yep, a shower curtain, I am getting to the stage where this is a luxurious item.
Still sore fom sunburn and we walked around the city in an hour. Meet Brendas Dutch friends so I learn a few words of dutch. Am not sure if I should try it as not sure what they are teaching me. Tomorrow we go to Buddha Park and day after a 22 hr bus journey to Han Houi. Should be fun, hey safer than loas airways whose motto is we hope you get there safely!
Next day we are up and about the temperature is 35 plus. Hot enough to see a couple of sights and not much more.
So we decide to do the laos revolutionary museum. Its not like the museums at home but still interesting. A mixture of laos worch and english but mainly photographs, pots and some dinasour bones.
The interesting bit is how loas has been controlled by everyone in the past, siamese, french, vietnamese to an extent but they mainly encouraged them to be independant.
its interesting to see a different point of view. Pictures of the americans or american capturied rifles with the caption "here is a rifle belonging to the american imperialists and their puppets". No resentment there then!
Next it was trying to find a bank, interesting i know but you try and find an ATM machine in laos or a bank that does dollars.
After that it was too hot to do anything so Brenda and I played several games of shit head (card game) and drank beer. I know all it sounds like I do is drink beer... blame brenda, I found my ideal travelling companion.
So we have to do some tourist things, its still backing. Hot so we go to the oldest standing Laos temple (all the others have been trashed by the siames). Then another temple which houses all Laos art treasure. Didn't realise it as I thought great I can see some paintings but all they were was a large collection of buddha images, the most famous of which was one with a jewel in its navel.
That was done in an hour and passed the equivalent of viatene's champs eleysays with itsch de trumph at the end.
The rest of the day was shithead beers and yet again the cinema... honestly there isn't much else to do in the evenings. The cinema was great big screen open air with cushions again and chick flick "two weeks notice" which after a few beers and the world service (god is there any part of the workld not at war at the moment!) was quite a good evening. It ended with us passing out at 9.30, un-heard of at home.
Next day we pack up our stuff and decide to brave the public bus to the Buddha Park.
Posted by alexd at March 24, 2004 01:56 PMWhat an adventure you're having. Caught up with your last week's travel this afternoon. Can't believe that while you're doing all of that - all we've been doing is work! Very dull.
The tube ride sounds fun (not the sunburn though).
Look forward to reading more about your adventures next weekend! xx